Book Demo, English, Fiction, Children's Book, The Velveteen Rabbit
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North American (General)Transcript
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There was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really splendid. He was fat and bun Chee, as a rabbit should be. His coat was spotted brown and white. He had real thread whiskers, and his ears were lined with pink sateen on christmas morning when he sat wedged in the top of the boy's stocking, with a sprig of holly between his paws. The effect was charming. There were other things in his stocking nuts and oranges, and a toy engine and chocolate almonds, and a clockwork mouse. But the rabbit was quite the best of all, for at least two hours the boy loved him, and then aunts and uncles came to dinner, and there was a great rustling of tissue paper and unwrapping of parcels, and in the excitement of looking at all the new presence. The velveteen rabbit was forgotten for a long time. He lived in the toy cupboard or on the nursery floor, and no one thought very much about him. He was naturally shy, and being made only a velveteen. Some of the more expensive toys quite snubbed him. The mechanical toys were very superior, and looked down upon everyone else. They were full of modern ideas, and pretended they were real. The model boat, who had lived through two seasons and lost most of his paint caught the tone from them, and never missed an opportunity of referring to his rigging in technical terms. The rabbit could not claim to be a model of anything, for he didn't know that real rabbits existed. He thought they were all stuffed with sawdust like himself, and he understood that sawdust was quite out of date and should never be mentioned in modern circles. Even timothy, the jointed wooden lion who was made by the disabled soldiers and should have had broader views put on airs and pretended he was connected with government between them all. The poor little rabbit was made to feel himself very insignificant and commonplace. And the only person who was kind to him at all was the skin horse. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrived to boast and swagger and by and by break their main springs and pass away and he knew that they were only toys and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the skin horse understand all about it. What is real? Asked the rabbit one day. Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick out handle real isn't how you're made? Said the skin horse. It's a thing that happens to you when a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you. Then you become real